Consumer SSD prices are likely to continue their upward trend for the foreseeable future, with a new projection from Phison CEO Pua Khein-Seng suggesting that NAND supply will not meet demand for approximately four years. This timeline extends the current memory and SSD crisis potentially into 2030.
Pua Khein-Seng indicated that demand from AI infrastructure is expected to surge from late 2024 through early 2027. While Phison is working to secure its supply chain for the next two years, the primary constraint remains the availability of NAND flash. The construction of new NAND production facilities involves a significant lead time, with new capacity typically taking four years from initial investment to market readiness. Despite ongoing efforts to establish new manufacturing sites, it will be a considerable period before these contribute to market supply.
These concerns are mirrored by industry leaders such as Micron's executive Sumit Sadana, who has highlighted the challenges in rapidly scaling up new memory wafer fabrication plants to accommodate the intense demands of AI. Unlike AI data centers, which can be deployed relatively quickly, memory wafer fabs require extensive development timelines.
The situation for storage may be more acute than for system memory. While potential advancements in AI models could alleviate some DRAM supply pressures, the substantial data storage requirements for AI servers necessitate vast quantities of NAND flash. This divergence in demand, coupled with ongoing supply limitations and distant production expansions, paints a challenging picture for consumers.
In response to these market conditions, Phison is reportedly shifting its focus from the retail consumer market towards enterprise and AI applications, a move that could further exacerbate supply issues for individual buyers. The current high prices for consumer SSDs may persist and even increase if these supply-demand dynamics continue unabated.